Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi

GENRE: Young Adult - Fantasy/Romance/Dystopian
FORM: AudioBook
NARRATOR: Kate Simses
SERIES: Shatter Me

SYNOPSIS (from Goodreads): 

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war-- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

REVIEW:  I found Shatter Me one day just looking for something to put on my iPhone to listen to while I worked. I had never really heard much about it and really didn’t even know what it was about. When you start off at an insane asylum, and the main character is teetering on the edge of sanity, even though she was placed in there because of a disease rather than actual insanity, you are left wondering what is going to happen.

Juliette has a problem. She cannot touch anyone without sucking their life from them. It’s a disease, it’s an ability, it’s a curse, it’s a gift. The entire book is written from Juliette’s perspective. I listened via audio, but I think that it was actually suppose to be a journal of her experience. The audio had a lot of slashing sounds that I am assuming was suppose to be her marking what her thought was out and replacing it. Anyhow, it’s obvious from the moment that she gets a cellmate, a male cellmate where the direction of the romance portion of this story is moving. It only later becomes clear that the two had known each other previously. Juliet had gone to school with Adam, from 2nd grade all the way up until Jr High, and she remembered him to be the only person who didn’t look at her like she was a monster, who actually stuck up for her even though they had never spoken. But something has brought him to this place with her…

Shatter Me is a very dramatic book. From the beginning, when it’s a little hard to follow Juliette’s thoughts and actions until the very end when she’s much more stable and sure of herself. The romance between her and Adam is obvious, frequent, passionate and…frequent. I actually enjoyed the journaled-like writing, although via audio sometimes I had a hard time distinguishing between something Juliette said and something she just thought. The book is dystopian, collapse of the world due to global warming and many other world-malfunctions. There is a strong armed leader – an extremely stereotypical villain – Warner. He was so much the power hungry, masochist. He was written almost sexy in a way that was kind of disgusting, and I’m really, really hoping that it doesn’t go a whole lot further in that direction between he and Juliette .

From beginning to end – and I have read this in several reviews since I listened to the book – Juliette is a constant reminder of X-Men’s Rogue…this is fine, since she was always my favorite character. The story is basic, and fun and really just entertaining. If you like lots of kissing, then you’re in for a bonus as well!